The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c25.s1.7

v1.c25.s1.7

A similar inconclusive result awaits any endeavour to sift the assertions so frequently advanced as to the circulation, and even the striking, of double darics in India. These fine gold coins (Pl. I, 6) are, in the strict sense, Persian. But it is hardly likely that any of them were minted until after the defeat of the last of the Achaemenids by Alexander. It is certain that the great majority bear Greek monograms or letters, and that they were issued at Babylon, and possibly elsewhere, by the satraps of the Macedonian conqueror. That they were popular in the East is beyond question. Whether they made their way into India is another matter. The statement that they were struck there has nothing whatever to confirm it. Nearly all of the specimens in the British Museum were acquired at Rāwalpindi, but the real source seems to have been the rich find or series of finds made about 1877 and 1878 in Bukhāra, 'eight marches beyond the Oxus, at an old fort on the tongue of land formed by two joining rivers.' The precise locality appears to have been Kabadian, a town on the Kapinahan, in the ancient Sogdiāna.